Some of the biggest numbers remaining on the Loomis collection board, as is the case with Campbell, belong to those who played the biggest role in the crime: David Ghantt, the Loomis employee who loaded all that money 2,800 pounds in all into the back of a company van before escaping to Mexico, has paid just under $50,000 of the $3.81 million he was assessed. Its hilarious. He goes, My name is Bruno. I was expecting her to kick me out of the house., Years later, after they married and had a child together, they watched a movie based on the whole ordeal. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4,. As you probably know, it's loosely based on the Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte back in the late nineties. Sweat soaked David's uniform. Michelle Chambers received seven years and eight months, while Steve Chambers was handed an 11-year sentence. Or that it was an inheritance. Or is the loot buried in somebody's yard? All rights reserved. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. Kelly had recently left a job driving an armored-car for Loomis, Fargo & Co. "He's the one who brought it up first," said Kelly, a year after her arrest. Now that Kelly believes she has found Jesus, she has become more analytical about her past. His assignment was to deliver the cash to David and keep him happy until they could find a way to kill him, McKinney said. Michele received the best gift of the night. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. He couldn't even bear to stick around for the final tally--though when he left he didn't forget to take $6,000, the first cut of his expected $100,000 share. Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand. I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. He wouldn't give me the opportunity to say anything else. They paid for all of it in cash. She didn't plan to move to Mexico. Im a very deliberate person. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. Ghantt was already married when he took part in the heist, to a woman named Tammy who author Diamant described as very nice. It is true, however, that she had no idea about the plot and that he fled to Mexico without telling her. Reach our Customer Contact Center by calling 877.877.0560 from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM CT every day or by completing the provided form. The plan called for David to leave the vault door ajar, then maneuver a few minutes alone at the end of his shift, long enough to loot the cash, then pass it to Kelly and Steve. Starting Pay Rate: $15.50 per hour Shift: Monday - Friday from 1:00pm to 9:00pm Job Description As a Coin Processor, you work with your team to maintain inventory in our cash vaults for our Loomis customers. In real life: Mostly true. I hear her typing. That October, the Chamberses' bank accounts ballooned. At 6-1 and 220 pounds, Steve was stocky and imposing, a fast talker with a brown goatee. Then another. . In early September 1997, Kelly found herself chatting on the phone with a friend who still worked at Loomis, a 27-year-old man who, despite being married, had made no secret of the fact that he had a crush on her. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist seeing a woodpecker after someone dies lectomano que significa. Jim Gronquist, Campbells defense attorney during the Loomis case, says the financial penalties levied against his client and her co-defendants are grossly excessive and unjust, particularly since most of the stolen Loomis money was actually recovered. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. He's a very likable person. "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". Kelly called David at. Steve tried keys on a side door. "He was in tears. Why do we feel its so necessary to treat people like this, to say, OK, well just ruin the rest of your life because you made a bad decision., Punishment should not last a lifetime. Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. Steve led the planning. In real life: True. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. The figures can be astounding. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. But McKinney never stopped trying to kill Ghantt although, initally, McKinney thought Chambers had paid for the hit over a drug deal gone bad, Diamant said. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. There were times when I drank really heavily.". . They tried to break the van's bulletproof windows. Exhibit A was that Steve had no steady job but plenty of cash. I loved it. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. Almost 19 years after Ghantt and a group of friends from Gaston County pulled off one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history, the movie "Masterminds" will play up the caper for laughs. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. So it was weird when during the middle of the week, there were these very clean-cut, very Midwestern looking, obviously American guys in the town. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. Twice a week over the next 12 months, we will take you back to the winter of sheep cloning and the summer of Con Air. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. The name she gave the pup is apropos. There it was, "The Heist." He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. He had even scheduled a follow-up appointment at the dentist. He gave the rest to Kelly. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". Ghantt didn't actually meet Chambers until the night of the heist, though, according to Diamant, who would go on to write a book about it.The . Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. On the evening of October 4, 1997, one man loaded $17.3 million in cash from the vaults of Loomis, Fargo & Co. into the back of a van. Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. She could spend time with her children and parents. Where I was going was right there near the Cayman Islands. I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. They sweated, though the night was cool. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. Scary. When I call Ghantt to discuss his involvement in the Loomis Fargo heist, he confesses that hes feeling a bit tired from a day of honest labor. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. I missed my wife. It's about the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery also known as the "hillbillly heist" the second largest cash robbery in the history of the United States. It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. But after a year, they'll cut it down to two agents. After years of reflection and time in prison to work on himself, Ghantt was able to find a way to a better version of himself. To that end, Campbell brought in her childhood friend Steve Chambers, who was characterized in the local press as a small-time drug dealer and a local fence for stolen goods, to lead the team. Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. He couldn't talk.". Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. Two more defendants in the $17 million Loomis Fargo & Co. robbery last year have agreed to plead guilty, and a third person entered a formal plea in court. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. The Evergreen State takes the top spot again in the U.S. News Best States ranking on the strength of its tech sector and other industries. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. . Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" Looking for Kelly Loomis? Back in North Carolina, Ghantts former accomplices were living high on the hog. Before David left for the airport, he had handed Scott an eight-inch key ring. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. He had just returned to his home in Jacksonville, Fla., when he agreed to talk about the heist, his life now and what went wrong when a group of friends who thought they could get away with stealing $17 million cash. He appeared happily matched with his high-spirited wife, Michele, and the two children from her first marriage. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. So the last third of the movie is almost entirely fiction. I told them, Take it, box it up, and youll be able to ship it to me in Mexico. Back in the 1990s, you couldve probably boxed up a hot pink elephant and shipped it to Mexico; no one wouldve ever noticed. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. Hes going to start bringing you money. Alright. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. The theft at the time the second-largest cash robbery in U.S. history has been the brunt of mocking movies and books, mostly on how the thieves, who had little money to begin with, could not control their spending habits once they did. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. "He said, 'Yeah, right,' and turned his head. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. When Ghantt was on the plane home from Mexico with the FBI, he admitted to the agents that while Campbell had been integral to why hed done it and that he did indeed have a crush on her it was never his true motivation. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. One day, the two employees were in the break room and got to talking about the news of the day a massive bank heist that just occurred in Florida by someone at their company. Thats nearly $11 million less than former Kings Mountain resident David Ghantt (played by Galifianakis in the film) helped steal from the vault where he worked in Charlotte back in October 1997. Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. Meanwhile, Steve was keeping a close eye on Kelly. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. Chambers, who still lives in Gaston County and operates a gym, declined to comment. In real life: False. Kelly told the FBI she had done drugs with David but denied knowing about the theft. Was Queen Charlotte Black? That was great. That week, the FBI designated the theft its 142nd "major case," putting it on a list--begun in the 1970s--that includes such other infamous crimes as the World Trade Center bombing. . But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. But it was the rural, Southern backgrounds of many of the key players, along with the many botched twists and bungled turns, that led the media to dub it the hillbilly heist.. Twelve hours later, at 6 that evening, Eric Payne drove a rented Budget van to his workplace, a graphics company on Performance Road in western Mecklenburg County called Reynolds & Reynolds, which was closed for the night and had a secluded parking lot where they intended to transfer the cash. "Love" has four. The authorities didn't know yet how much was missing from the armored-car company, but Steve did. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. Thomas Grant, who served three years in prison for bank larceny, paid off restitution of $70,000; brother Eric Grant paid all of his $26,000; as did David Craig, $40,000; and Dennis and Sandra Floyd; $27,000. She was devastated, Diamant said. Ghantt simply got ready for work one morning knowing it would be his last day on the job. Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. In real life: Yes and no. "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . How Bridgerton restarted buzz about her ancestry. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. That time in prison was actually good for me. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. But it didnt really hit me until later., On March 2nd, when the FBI agents walked up to Ghantt in Playa del Carmen and told him he was under arrest, Ghantt was relieved. In a word, "Teamwork. Before long, the tales of high living by Chambers and his now former wife, Michelle, led the thieves to be labeled either the "Cramer Mountain Hillbillies" or "The gang that couldn't steal straight." His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. At first, David Ghantt said, "I didn't take her seriously. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him. We got this guy named Bruno. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. Charlotte hotel chef who serves with a smile recognized as outstanding ambassador, Eritrean, Ethiopian restaurant owner was a big brother and father to many in Charlotte, Home tours: This wired-up Weddington smart home has a pool big enough for the neighborhood. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2002. Loomis officials--forced to break into their own vault because David had taken the keys with him--calculated that he had stolen $17,044,000, making the second biggest heist in U.S. history, following the $18.8 million theft of an armored car by another Loomis Fargo employee just six months earlier. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. "I thought he was goofing around.". The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. There was, however, one problem with his plan. "I was thinking, 'They aren't paying me enough,' " McKinney recalled. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. Now he offered to pay him to carry cash to David--Steve said he was a friend hiding out after a bad drug deal, McKinney recalled. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. But as he later recalled to the media, as soon as he stepped through those big-box doors, he realized he was flush with cash, and he didnt need to shop at Walmart ever again. Was that really what it was about? They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. . real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist (No Ratings Yet) . In December, agents got the tie-in they were looking for: Kelly Campbell had bought a $30,000 Toyota minivan with cash and registered it to one of Steve Chambers's aliases. There had been no signs. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. The plan was to split the money three ways: Chambers, Campbell and Ghantt would each walk away with what Ghantt estimated to be $5 million a piece the kind of money that changes lives forever. "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. See all of the stories here. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. Meanwhile, outside Reynolds & Reynolds, Steve, Scott and Eric needed to move 2,748 pounds of cash, quickly, from the Loomis van into the Budget van. Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. Ghantt spent a solid hour moving what ended up being 2,700 pounds of cash more than an actual ton into an unmarked company van. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. The barrels were Steves idea, Ghantt says. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. She came from a blue-collar background, a high school dropout who had grown tired of working in a mill and gotten an equivalency diploma. Careers. To say nothing of their art purchases like the aforementioned velvet Elvis portrait and a painting of a bulldog dressed as General George S. Patton. Kelly found herself standing beside David while they waited together for a bond hearing. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. . His name was Corey. That day, FBI agents also would arrest Scott Grant and Eric Payne, who had spent his share of the money on a motorcycle and breast implants for his wife and two sisters. Posted on . In real life: True. That led to better jobs, like the one at Loomis. So he convinced a local hoodlum in Mexico to try to kill Ghantt. Not many people can say they stole $17 million from their employer and had Zach Galifianakis play them in a movie. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Scott didn't want to, but then he remembered the hundred-grand payday. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. You can seize property. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. Mine did. Almost 19 years after Ghantt and a group of friends from Gaston County pulled off one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history, the movie "Masterminds" will play up the caper for laughs. Dependent care account. He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin. He longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood, with its private religious-school education and Disney World vacations. Eric watched. But it wasnt. Not a documentary. Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. When he was done, the man drove off to a nearby printing press, where the money was distributed into private vehicles amongst a handful of people. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. What made her do it? Ghantt was working as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte in 1997, earning about $8 an hour and tired of his humdrum life. Ghantt was in fact hiding out in Mexico using McKinneys I.D., which had been sold to Chambers months earlier. Inside the Mazda, Steve told Scott Grant to get out and help David. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. On October 5, 1997, FBI agents gathered at the Loomis, Fargo & Co. warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, to watch a security videotape of a man loading stacks of cash into a pushcart and wheeling them from the vault. Campbell, a former Loomis employee and one of the original masterminds of the caper, has paid off less than $21,000 of the $4,701,694.18 she was docked. . . ". Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement.
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